[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 102 (Monday, July 19, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8810-S8811]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     COMPREHENSIVE TEST BAN TREATY

  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I want to discuss an item of very 
significant importance that has brought me to the floor of the Senate 
several times and brings me here again today. That is the issue of the 
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
  I earlier mentioned President John F. Kennedy. President John F. 
Kennedy was very interested in a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. 
I want to describe why that is the case and relate it to the comments 
made by my colleague dealing with China in which he talked about 
accountability and responsibility. I agree with those terms and in most 
cases with the use of those terms on the floor of the Senate.
  It was 54 years ago last Friday that the first nuclear explosion took 
place on this Earth; the first nuclear bomb was detonated 54 years ago 
last Friday. Virtually everything changed because of it.
  Following the detonation of a nuclear device it was used to end the 
Second World War. Eventually nuclear weapons led to a cold war with the 
Soviet Union in which both sides began to stockpile thousands and 
thousands of nuclear bombs and nuclear weapons of various types. 
Presidents of the United States started talking about the need to stop 
the proliferation of nuclear weapons, to keep them in as few hands as 
possible among the countries of the world. Many countries aspired to 
have nuclear bombs, nuclear weapons. However, it was obviously in the 
interests of the safety of humankind to try to keep nuclear weapons out 
of the hands of those who aspired to have them.
  President Eisenhower, in May of 1961, spoke about a ban on testing 
nuclear devices. If you can't test a nuclear device, you don't know 
whether you have one that works. A test ban effectively means that 
anyone who claims to have a nuclear weapon cannot claim to have a 
nuclear weapon that works because they will never know.
  That is the value of a ban on testing, a ban that was aspired to as 
long ago as President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who said the following:

       Not achieving a test ban would have to be classed as the 
     greatest disappointment of any administration, of any decade, 
     of any time and of any party.

  He left office deeply disappointed that even in those early days long 
before the buildup of nuclear weapons existed so aggressively across 
the world, he was profoundly disappointed at not getting the test ban.

  President John F. Kennedy got a test ban in place in 1963 dealing 
with atmospheric tests. The ban on atmospheric tests in 1963 was 
partially successful. He desired a total ban. He said:

       A test ban would place the nuclear powers in a position to 
     deal more effectively with one of the greatest hazards man 
     faces. . . . It would increase our security, it would 
     decrease the prospects of war. Surely this goal is 
     sufficiently important to require our steady pursuit, 
     yielding neither to the temptation to give up the whole 
     effort nor the temptation to give up our insistence on vital 
     and responsible safeguards.

  Now, since that time, we have seen more nations achieve the ability 
to build nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver them. We have seen 
our country and the Soviet Union stockpile tens of thousands of nuclear 
weapons. It is quite remarkable, the United States and Russia, 
together, currently have more than 30,000 nuclear weapons. China has 
nuclear weapons. The number, to the extent we know, is classified. But, 
it is a minuscule amount as compared to 30,000. We know from recent 
events that India and Pakistan both have nuclear weapons. Both have 
exploded nuclear devices literally beneath each other's chin--and these 
are two countries that don't like each other. Two countries with a 
common border, with a great deal of animosity, both testing nuclear 
devices in a provocative way. Other countries aspire to achieve or to 
obtain nuclear weapons.
  What are we doing about all of this? There is a treaty that has been 
negotiated over a long period of time--in fact, ultimately over 
decades--and signed by 152 countries. It is a comprehensive nuclear 
test ban treaty. That comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty is a treaty 
which prohibits the testing of nuclear weapons, it bans the explosive 
testing of nuclear weapons all across this world.
  We have had some experience with treaties: arms control and arms 
reduction treaties, the START I treaty, Strategic Arms Limitation 
Treaty, SALT I, START II, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. A whole 
series of treaties have been considered and negotiated and ratified by 
the Senate.
  This treaty, the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, was 
negotiated and signed and sent to the Senate a long while ago--665 days 
ago; 665 days ago a treaty that this country negotiated and signed was 
sent to the Senate to be ratified.
  What has happened with previous treaties? The limited nuclear test 
ban treaty in 1963 was sent to the Senate and considered in 3 weeks; 
the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty in 1972 took 3 months; the ABM 
Treaty took 10 weeks; the ABM Treaty protocols, 14 months; Conventional 
Forces in Europe, 4 months; START I, 11 months.
  The comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty was sent here over 665 days 
ago and it has yet to have had a first day of hearings in the Committee 
on Foreign Relations in the Senate.
  Why? Why would a treaty that is so important to this country languish 
for nearly 2 years without even an hour, not a day of hearings?

[[Page S8811]]

  We are, as a world, in a much better position than we were some years 
ago in the middle of the cold war when the Soviet Union and the United 
States were headlong in an arms race, building and deploying tens of 
thousands of nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union is gone. The cold war is 
over. The arms race has largely diminished.
  One thing remains constant: Many other countries around the world 
want to obtain nuclear weapons.
  Many countries around the world want to obtain delivery systems to 
deliver nuclear weapons. They are testing medium-range and long-range 
missiles. They are trying to find ways to produce or obtain the 
materials necessary to build a nuclear device. This country, in the 
middle of all of this, must provide leadership.
  It is our responsibility to provide that leadership. We are the 
remaining nuclear superpower. Russia has nuclear devices to be sure, 
but Russia is not a world power of the type the United States is at 
this point. We, as a country, must exert some leadership, and one step 
in the right direction towards diminishing the opportunities for other 
countries to achieve reliable nuclear weapons, is to quickly ratify 
this treaty, the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty.
  The decision of this country to drag our feet is almost unforgivable. 
It sends a signal to others around the rest of the world--to China, 
Russia, India, Pakistan and others--that this is not all that 
important; it is not a priority to the United States. It ought to be. 
Everybody in this Chamber ought to come to the floor to demand that 
this be brought before the Senate. It has languished for almost 2 years 
in the Foreign Relations Committee in the Senate. It ought to be 
brought to the floor, and we ought to have a debate on it.
  In October of this year, the countries who have ratified this treaty 
will be meeting to discuss implementing the treaty. They will 
apparently be meeting without the United States as an active 
participant. It is wrong, in my judgment, for this country to decide 
that it is not going to provide the leadership necessary on this 
treaty. The rest of the world looks to us, waits for us, and the Senate 
is dragging its feet. I understand the committees in the Senate have a 
great deal of authority and power. I recognize that, but it seems to me 
there is a compelling national interest that should require this 
country to lead, and require this Senate to ratify the comprehensive 
nuclear test ban treaty.
  I want to, with one additional chart, point out what was said by 
Secretary of State Albright:

       . . .this is the longest-sought, hardest-fought prize in 
     arms control. And it is a price not yet fully won. For 
     American leadership, for our future, the time has come to 
     ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty--this year, this 
     session, now.

  I heard my colleague from Alaska talk about Chinese espionage at the 
National Labs. That is an unsettling and a very serious issue. It 
raises all kinds of questions about the safeguarding of nuclear 
secrets, about how much and what kind of secrets might have been 
obtained by those who were spying on behalf of another country, and did 
these secrets allow that country or those countries to build higher 
yield or smaller nuclear devices.
  I do not know the answer to those questions, but the words 
``accountability and responsibility'' were used repeatedly in 
discussing that issue. Accountability and responsibility--it seems to 
me those two words are appropriate; in fact, those two words are 
exactly what we ought to talk about with respect to the Comprehensive 
Test Ban Treaty.
  Accountability and responsibility--if this country is responsible, 
and if this country is going to be accountable for its leadership in 
the world, the leadership away from the proliferation of nuclear 
weapons, the leadership toward a safer world, one with fewer nuclear 
weapons rather than more nuclear weapons, then this country will take 
the lead now on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. It is not the case, 
as some have argued, that the China espionage issue actually undercuts 
ratification of this treaty. In fact, that issue strengthens the need 
for this treaty. It strengthens the need for this treaty.
  To suggest--and there was a recent article in the Wall Street Journal 
suggesting there is a linkage--Chinese espionage is why we ought not 
ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is nonsense. In fact, these 
allegations of espionage, in my judgment, underscore why this treaty 
ought to be ratified and ought to be ratified now.

  To the extent that China believes it may have acquired the 
opportunity for better nuclear warheads, it will never know that unless 
it is able to test them. And as a signatory to a comprehensive nuclear 
test ban treaty, it cannot test without violating the treaty.
  I will be participating in a press conference tomorrow with others in 
the Senate during which we will announce a recent public opinion poll 
that has been done on this issue which shows widespread public support 
to ratify this comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. I hope that 
perhaps with some pressure and some thoughtfulness on the part of all 
Members of the Senate, we will be given an opportunity to debate and 
vote on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty soon.
  Again, I understand how this system works, but it is not a system 
that ought to work in the regular way for something as important as 
this: limiting the spread of nuclear weapons. This country ought to 
take the lead in preventing it, and it ought to do so now. It is just 
plain wrong for the Senate to drag its feet on a treaty of this 
importance. A treaty negotiated and signed by 152 countries, waiting to 
be ratified for almost 2 years, and not even have 1 hour of hearings. 
That is wrong and everybody in this Chamber should know it is wrong.
  I do hope my colleagues will join me in calling for the Foreign 
Relations Committee in the Senate to bring the comprehensive nuclear 
test ban treaty before the Senate.

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